Prima Marketing March Picks- Green with Envy
In addition I will share with you one of my latest favorites. This is my new focus, Hybrid. The melding of digitally altered, sized and printed photos with the textural lovelies of traditional scrapping. I did the tag on the bottom with typed journaling and printed that out on photo paper with the 6 photo collage on an 8 X 10 print. Then cut it out and added it as an embellishment. I use Storybook Creator 3.0. You can get it here. Creative Memories also has digi Freebies every day here. 
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Writing Past Each Other? Literary Translation and Community
I was sent information about this conference by the organisers, who asked me to pass it on to people who may be interested – and what better place to do that than this blog? In particular, the organisers are keen to publicise the call for papers, which closes on 31 March.
As someone with an interest in the translation of poetry, I am especially interested in the sessions they are planning on poetry and translation, which are being organised by poet Chris Price:
As a special feature of the conference, we are also organising translation workshop sessions with noted New Zealand poets (participants should pre-register; details to come). There will also be an evening reading session.
Here is the full announcement. For other details, e.g. how to register, please check out the conference web site.
Writing Past Each Other? Literary Translation and Community International Conference in Literary Translation
Victoria University of Wellington
11-13 December 2010
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Lawrence Venuti
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Announcement and Call for Papers
Metge and Kinloch (Talking Past Each Other: Problems in Cross-Cultural Communication, 1978), explore the ways in which those from diverse backgrounds misread important cultural differences in everyday life.
At this conference we hope to explore how literary translation promotes awareness and appreciation of such differences, while simultaneously creating a sense of community across local and international boundaries, or how a lack of such exchange can contribute to the isolation of literary cultures: how is globalisation affecting international literary exchange? how might translation contribute more to literary communities?
While papers on how these issues are articulated in the Asia-Pacific region are especially welcome, we also encourage paper proposals on a wide range of topics related to practical and theoretical aspects of literary translation and covering cross-cultural linguistic interaction from across the globe. Panel proposals (3 to 4 speakers) are especially welcome. Conference papers are to be delivered in English, but may relate to any of the world’s languages.
As a special feature of the conference, we are also organising translation workshop sessions with noted New Zealand poets (participants should pre-register; details to come). There will also be an evening reading session.
Please send abstracts (title of paper, name of presenter, 250 word outline and a short (50 word) bio-bibliographical note) by 31st March 2010 to NZCLT (at) vuw.ac.nz. We plan to publish selected papers from the conference in a refereed volume. Conference attendees wishing to have their papers published should submit them by 31st January 2011 for consideration.
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
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It’s Tuesday, Where Are You?

Actually, it’s well into Wednesday here, but I think there’s still a few small drops of Tuesday left in the US and Canada.
I always follow this feature at An Adventure In Reading and post my answer in the comment section. This is the first time I’ve featured it here. Why now? Work (wearing hobnailed boots and pungent socks) is kicking my bookwormy, bloggy ass. I can’t seem to finish any of the three books I’ve got going or put together a halfway decent review of what I have finished lately. Then there’s also the ongoing internet service problem I’m having at home which will be funny someday, but Not. Right. Now.
OK, enough whining. This isn’t about me. As most of you know, the answer to “It’s Tuesday…Where are you?” is: Where are your characters? What are they doing? I’m not sure, but I think I can pull myself together enough to report on what’s going on with them:
1. The Way West (novel) -A.B. Guthrie, Jr. So far, a bunch of townspeople (mostly men) are standing in front of a general store somewhere in Missouri, weighing the pros and cons of hitting the trail for Oregon…wonder how that’s gonna turn out?
2. Virginia Woolf (biography) – Hermione Lee. Virginia Stephen has just married Leonard Woolf and she’s hard at work on the nth draft of her first novel, The Voyage Out, but she’s feeling a little stressed out and run-down. Here comes her nineteenth nervous breakdown.
3. Dodsworth (novel) – Sinclair Lewis. Automobile magnate Sam Dodsworth is in Spain with his fortysomething wife, Fran, who is morphing in front of his startled eyes from a respectable Midwestern matron into a status-hungry trollop with a penchant for gigolos.
What’s up with your characters today?
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Review: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Format: Trade paperback
Released: March 4th, 2010
Grade rating: A+
Amazon summary:
They say that when you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for me. Sam Kingston is dead. Except she isn’t. On a rainy February night, eighteen-year-old Sam is killed in a horrific car crash. But then the impossible happens: she wakes up in her own bed, on the morning of the day that she died. Forced to live over and over the last day of her life the drive to school, skipping class, the fateful party she desperately struggles to alter the outcome, but every morning she wakes up on the day of the crash. This is a story of a girl who dies young, but in the process learns how to live. And who falls in love… a little too late.
Review:
I’ve been trying to write this review for weeks, but have had a hard time putting my thoughts into words. I could just say that Before I Fall is amazing, fantastic, a groundbreaking debut. It’s all of these things, yet so much more. You know when you read a book, and you’re left speechless at the end, like you’re in sensory overload? That was what happened to me when I read Before I Fall. I was a complete mess, left reeling like Sam’s end had been my end, like her thoughts and feelings had been my own. It’s a powerful feeling, though completely unprecedented.
Before I Fall made me wish I was a writer. It made me wish I could arrange sentences that would mean something to people, and maybe even change how they live their life. Not many books do that for me, but when they do, they cast their spell on me and stay in my head forever. Sam’s story did more than that — it made me realise that life is precious, and that every single choice we make has an effect. We might not see it, but it’s there. Our decisions have the ability to alter someone’s path, or someone’s self perception. We have to think about what we do, how we treat others and what one wrong turn can lead to.
Sam’s whole journey is filled with regrets and what ifs. Her story is tragic, yes, but it’s also redeeming. How many of us wish we could relive a day, maybe do something differently, or take something back? It’s a dream we’ll never experience, but for Sam it’s her reality, even her nightmare. She has a second chance, and she has to use it to fix the trouble she caused, and the people she hurt along the way. I didn’t like Sam at first; I thought she was horrible, stuck-up, and not someone I’d ever want to know. Lauren Oliver warned me of this before I started the book, so I was prepared to hate her. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much she’d change, and how much she’d speak to me and my way of life.
I’m a naturally shy, quiet person: I don’t take risks, I don’t try many new things, and I worry about situations I have no control over. Lauren has shown me that life’s too short to worry about what might happen in the future, and that once it’s gone, it’s gone. I’ve made a conscious effort to live a little, and not focus on the negatives of everything. For that I owe her a huge thanks, because it’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time. On a personal level, this book is everything I’ve needed, and I hope sharing my thoughts can make someone like me open their eyes to new experiences.
To put it simply, just buy this book. Meet Sam, cry with Sam, and live with Sam. Then go out and do something new. Even if you only say hi to someone outside your circle, or drive a different way to work, it’s a step in the right direction.
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US Vs. UK: Ash Covers
The UK cover is my favourite here, hands down. It’s so magical and pretty, and even nicer in person — it’s all shiny and reflective. I do like the US cover, but I think it looks too dark. The title font is lovely though, and I would be intrigued if I saw it in a bookshop.
Well done to Hodder UK for this cover, it’s one of my top covers of 2010 so far!
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Spring Literature Workshop
Spring Literature Workshop
Dates: April 12, 13, 15, 19, 20, & 22; 5:30-7pm
Reserve at Eventbrite
This 6-session intensive professional-development workshop will give attendees the opportunity to…
Visit website for more news. http://mosaicbooks.blogspot.com
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2010 Orange Prize Long List
- Rosie Alison, The Very Thought of You
- Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
- Clare Clark, Savage
- Amanda Craig, Hearts and Minds
- Roopa Farooki, The Way Things Look to Me
- Rebecca Gowers, The Twisted Heart
- M.J. Hyland, This is How
- Sadie Jones, Small Wars
- Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
- Laila Lalami, Secret Son
- Andrea Levy, The Long Song
- Attica Locke, Black Water Rising
- Maria McCann, The Wilding
- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
- Nadifa Mohamed, Black Mamba Boy
- Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs
- Monique Roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
- Amy Sackville, The Still Point
- Kathryn Stockett, The Help
- Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger
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Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Screen
Many readers have asked if Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson’s life companion, could finish the fourth book, as she was deeply involved in the writing while he was still alive. Gabrielsson herself is very positive that she could; however, Swedish jurisdiction obstructs such a solution. Because Gabrielsson and Larsson never married and because he did not leave behind a will, literary rights to his first three books have fallen to his father and brother. His long-time partner claims to have the laptop with the partial manuscript for the fourth book on it, but she is unwilling to part with it unless she is allowed to manage literary rights to the series. The suspense continues!
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Tonight at 7 – Oregon’s History in Pictures
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